


Dancing In The Devil’s Shoes

by Thunderfire69



Series: The Umbrella Academy Of Gays [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Compliant, Dialogue Light, Fix-It, For the most part, Gen, Ghosts, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Other, Pogo still dies, Reginald Hargreeves’ A+ Parenting, Talking to the dead, Vanya dies, but it kind of is, its not mentioned but he does, kind of, klaus-centric, series overview, theres seriously like three lines of dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 13:56:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18262688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunderfire69/pseuds/Thunderfire69
Summary: Klaus was told his addictions was him dancing in the devil’s shoes, but maybe he was something more than that.This takes place throughout the whole series, and is mostly canon-compliant apart from the ending!





	Dancing In The Devil’s Shoes

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Dancing In The Devil’s Shoes from Leap Of Faith

For a long time, Klaus had been told that his addictions was him dancing in the devil's shoes. That one day, it would swallow him whole, drag him under and never release him; Klaus thought that their assumptions that it hadn’t  _ already  _ consumed him were laughable. Since the age of thirteen, drugs and alcohol had him in their clutches, caught in their grasp and they weren’t about to let him go. He was constantly chasing his next high, always ready to be out of it again, always ready to disconnect from the real world.

 

It began to consume his very waking being, constantly worrying about where he could get the money to get drugs to get his next high to keep away the ghosts. It was a vicious cycle, and the knowledge that Reginald Hargreeves was monitoring all of them and did nothing to try and help him just added fuel to the fire. He began stealing things from his adoptive father, things he knew his father wouldn’t miss but would still earn him enough money at the local pawn shop to get his next fix. 

 

This stopped after Ben’s death; at the age of sixteen, Ben suddenly died, and within a week all but Luther had moved out of the Academy, each finding their own way in the world. It would surprise the other Hargreeves to know that Klaus kept tabs on all of them after they went their separate ways. Five disappearing had affected him more than most knew, and Ben’s death was the final straw; Klaus wasn’t particularly close to any of his other siblings, but he didn’t want to lose track of any of them, much less have one of them die without his knowing.

 

Allison was the easiest to keep track of; she was a rising star, and Klaus simply had to pick up a magazine to find an article on her. He wondered if he’d ever get the chance to tell her how proud he was of her, not that she’d probably appreciate it coming from him. After all, Klaus  _ was _ the family’s crackhead; he doubted any of his siblings would value his opinion.

 

Diego wasn’t too hard to keep track of, either; at least, not once he got kicked out of the Police Academy. It was everywhere in the news, reporters scrambling to write something about one of the Umbrella Academy being such a disappointment. It wasn’t hard to keep track of the “Masked Hero” that had popped up only a week later, and Klaus found himself wishing he could help Diego get back into the Police Academy somehow, but again he wasn’t sure his opinion or condolences would be appreciated.

 

Luther was also pretty easy to keep track of, once he got shipped off to the moon years later; up until that point, all Klaus knew was that he was still living with his father at the Academy. Sometimes a mission Luther did would be in the news, giving Klaus some confirmation that his brother was still alive and kicking. Once he was sent to the moon, however, Klaus couldn’t keep any track of him at all; he simply had to trust that Luther was alive, which wasn’t too hard, since Luther was alone on the moon. Unless he killed himself or ran out of oxygen, Klaus knew he was safe.

 

And then, finally, there was Vanya. She lived a pretty normal life, and her house was in the general area Klaus frequented. He knew when she began teaching violin, and sat in the back of the hall to watch her play on more than one occasion. He never made himself known to her, though, staying in the shadows at the back to listen to her play; he wasn’t sure she’d appreciate him being there if she knew.

 

Klaus himself lived a life that he was glad none of his siblings would bother to keep track of. He was still chasing his next high, getting money in anyway he could; this involved stealing valuables to sell where he could, and having sex with whoever was willing to pay him best. He was constantly getting drunk of his ass, and had seen the inside of a hospital so often from the drugs he took that he knew the names and faces of every doctor and nurse in there. It wasn’t a life he was proud of, but he’d prefer to end up inside of that hospital or to be fucked by some stranger in a back alley than have ghosts screaming at him again.

 

Then Reginald Hargreeves died. Klaus initially returned to try and pilfer something more valuable from the house, which he succeeded in doing, but he ended up returning for the spreading of his ashes. He wasn’t sure what called him back, what exactly drew him back in. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t had access to the really hard drugs in a long time, and Ben had been more frequently at his side, and maybe that had had some influence over him. Maybe he felt he owed something to Reginald Hargreeves, even if the man was abusive and horrible and just the worst person Klaus had ever met.

 

Either way, Klaus was there, and Five’s reappearance made him so glad that he was. He felt so compelled to hug Five the moment he reappeared, but he controlled himself, once again not sure how it might be received. Instead, he let the others lead Five inside before going to crouch down by Reginald’s ashes.

“I bet you’re loving this, hmm? The team at its best. Best funeral ever,” he said quietly, then let out a small laugh to himself. 

 

From there, things just got more crazy; Five seemed obsessed over  _ something,  _ something related to that goddamn eye he kept carrying. Luther was insistent on finding out what happened to Reginald, and Vanya seemed to keep showing up out of support. Diego was overly protective of Mom, and Klaus simply hung around to see what would happen. 

 

Five somehow managed to talk him into trying to help him with finding the owner of the eye, and Klaus felt somewhat proud of his strategy to make the man talk, until it ultimately turned over no results. Five seemed exceptionally pissed about the lack of information, so Klaus didn’t even try to ask what he’d thought of his plan, not that it probably would have been answered no matter the outcome.

 

Then he’d been kidnapped by those two assassins, Cha Cha and Hazel. They were smart, he’d give them that, and the torture they put him through was painful, but he dealt with it; the worst thing had to be the withdrawals. He did eventually end up spilling some of the information to them, until Ben forcefully commanded him to talk to the ghosts and not shy away from them. Klaus was surprised to find that talking to the ghosts actually helped him.

 

The moment Diego freed him, Klaus pulled on his clothes and made for the briefcase he’d been eying off for the past hour; whatever valuables were in there, they were his now. A small commission for torturing him for so long.

 

He hadn’t expected the briefcase to take him back in time, and he certainly hadn’t expected to fall in love. Dave’s death shattered him, the man he loved, his  _ soulmate  _ dying under his hands.

 

The first thing he did when arriving home was get rid of as many drugs as possible, determined to go sober. Then all the shit went down with the apocalypse, and Mom died, and Klaus did what he never thought he’d do; he tried his best to comfort Diego, and his brother oddly seemed to be glad for it.

 

Then there was what happened in the concert hall. Klaus had never felt that much raw power flow through his veins, much less ever actually seen a ghost interact so violently and suddenly with the living world. Allison managed to stop Vanya, and Five had given them a triumphant smile; they'd stopped the apocalypse. 

 

The next thing they had to do would haunt Klaus for years; he thought the war was terrible, but he really would never get the sight or sound out of his head. That single, hollow, echoing gunshot as Five killed Vanya would haunt him for the rest of his life, along with Allison’s sobs and Diego’s loud, almost earth shattering scream of anguish as Vanya fell limp before their eyes. The only comfort Klaus had was the ghost that immediately rose from her body, the soft, sad smile ghost-Vanya gave him before she gave Ben a brief hug, then dissipated. She was the first ghost Klaus ever knew to have found her peace.

 

He made sure to mention this to the others, though it gave them little comfort; Allison smiled through her tears, but still kept sobbing, and Diego still looked horribly, irreversibly hurt, as if he was the one responsible for Vanya’s downfall. Klaus could do little to comfort him, but he tried once again, and found Diego seemed to appreciate it as much as he had the first time, after Mom’s death.

 

They’d all lost so much, but they’d come so far, and done so many great things. They’d stopped the apocalypse, and Klaus had no doubt that this was what Dave would have wanted him to do. As the family stood around Vanya’s body in a kind of vigil, Klaus spotted someone walking towards him from the corner of his eye. He turned, and tears filled his eyes are he recognised the face before him; it was Dave, his Dave.

 

Somehow Klaus managed to draw on his newfound power again, enough that he could actually give Dave a hug, despite knowing he was a ghost.

 

“You did well,” Dave said quietly. “I’m proud of you.”

 

Klaus smiled despite the chaos, despite all they’d lost, despite all the people that had been killed that day.

 

“I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> I started with a completely different fic idea in mind; this was meant to explore how Klaus suffered as a child, and ended as a semi-fix-it and a series overview.


End file.
